One-Shot Stories

The Shark

Honestly, it was your fault.

The signs clearly said to swim at your own risk. The additional sign said that there were sharks in the area. The other sign on top of that had mentioned something vaguely about the beach being closed for an indefinite amount of time due to the sharks in the area. Oh well.

You felt oddly disconnected from everything, and you stared upward at the sky, barely visible through the reflection of the surface. You see yourself, and notice that something's missing. Thinking it's odd, you close your eyes.

When your eyes open next, you are in a hospital bed, comfortable and dry. You blink a few times, trying to get your brain to work properly, and place your hand over your eyes.

Or you would have, if your hand had still been there. You look at your arm and realize that from the bicep down, there's nothing there. You feel a strange humming buzz at the back of your skull, and the room spins. Abruptly, everything goes dark.

It feels like you're floating, weightless, yet you can feel a weight pressing down on you from all sides. You can hear a strange sound; no, not strange, familiar. A round, sort of echoing sound, almost like... bubbles? You look around in the blackness and don't see anything. Wait... a shape, long and smooth, circles just outside your peripheral vision. It almost looks like...

Suddenly, the blackness bleeds into brightness, like someone turning a dimmer switch too fast. You shield your eyes, and squint into the light. After a moment, your eyes adjust and you find yourself standing on a small grassy island in the middle of a large body of blue water. You can't see the horizon, it seems obscured with fog, and the sky is a bright white. You turn on the spot in wonder. Then, you see a distinctive pointed fin break the glassy stillness of the water.

A shark.

You panic slightly, but realizing there's no place to go, you hold your ground.
After all, sharks can't come on land.

The fin draws ever closer, and you realize that the fin is much larger than you originally thought. It makes you more nervous than before, but you stand still.
Sharks have to stay in the water... right?

Finally the fin slows and stops a few feet from the edge of the little island, and is motionless for a long minute. Despite yourself, you're curious.

You walk slowly toward the edge, the curiosity finally overwhelming. You kneel and look down into the water. Well, one thing confirmed: definitely a shark. Nothing happens for long minutes, and you begin to feel silly. What were you expecting to happen? You sigh to yourself, exasperated. Standing, you turn, looking around.

"What now?" you wonder aloud to yourself. You sigh again. This is all very pretty and all, but as far as dreams go, this was pretty boring. At the very least, your dream self seemed to have all of its limbs still. As you look at your still-there dream hand, you again feel an overwhelming buzzing at the back of your head, and you sit on the grass, dizzy.

"...are you functional?" a voice says from behind you. You stiffen. Who said that? It's just you here. Well, you and-

You twist around, looking for the fin in the water, and jump when you see a shark head where it was. It looks blankly at you, and you stare at it. After a moment, you blink, and chuckle quietly to yourself. There's no way-

"Are you functional?" the voice said again. You goggle at the shark, absolutely sure there was no possible way it was speaking, but...

"Did... did you speak?" You ask the shark tentatively. The shark nods. You feel your eye twitch and a bizarre grin crosses your face. O-kay...

You turn fully to face the shark, kneeling by the water.

"I'm sorry, I've never spoken to a shark before. I, um, am functional, I think? Like, I don't really feel bad or anything," you said carefully.